The present invention relates to a device for acceleration measurements and in particular for gravitational field measurements in, for example, satellites.
A device for highly accurate acceleration measurements is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,487. In this known device, the acceleration of a charged body is measured in an homogeneous electric field, which is generated by six electrodes assigned to each other in pairs. In order to be able to resolve changes in the gravitational field in the range of 10.sup.-10 g, in the device known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,487, the position of the body at any given time is measured interferometrically.
This known device has thus a number of disadvantages:
For example, a position location device which uses three interferometers, is not only very expensive, it also has high space requirements and must be precisely adjusted. These requirements alone make it appear doubtful that with the known device the desired precision can be achieved in an orbit around the earth, into which the device has been transported by a rocket or a space shuttle.
In addition, the force field, in which the "measuring body" is suspended, is in the known device generated by electric fields. The known device has thus a relatively high energy requirement, which is likewise a disadvantage in spacecraft.
A device of a different type for acceleration measurements is known from the article "A Supersensitive Accelerometer for Spacecraft Gradiometry" by V. S. Reinhardt et. al in the Proceedings of the IEEE Position Location and Navigation Symposium (1982).